AN    ADDRE1SS 


DELIVERED  BY 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN, 


BEFORE  THE 


Springfield  Washingtonian  Temperance  Society, 


LINCOLN    IN    1842. 


AT  THE  SECOND  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH, 

SPRINGFIELD,    ILLINOIS, 

On  the  22d  Day  of  February,  1842. 


'  ~ 


SPRINGFIELD: 

O.  H.  OLDROYD,  PUBLISHER, 

1869. 


DANIELS    &    PITKIN,    PRINTERS,    51-53   DEARBORN   ST.,    CHICAGO 


- 


AN    ADDRB.SS 


DELIVERED    BY 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN, 


BEFORE  THE 


Springfield  Wasliinsrtonian  Temperance  Society, 


SECOND    PRESBYTERIAN   CHURCH, 
SPRINGFIELD,   ILL.,    1842. 


AT    THE    SECOND    PRESBYTERIAN    CHURCH, 


SPRINGFIELD,    ILLINOIS, 


On  the  221  Day  of  February,  1842. 


COPYKIGHT,   1«89, 

BY  O.  H.  OLUROYD,  PUBLISHER, 
SPKINGFIELD,  ILL. 


• 


LINCOLN   HOMESTEAD,  SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS. 


O.  H.  OLDRCYD. 

STATS     CUS~OO!A  ". 


o 

<o 


AN  ADDRESS 

DELIVERED     BEFORE      THE      SPRINGF^LD      WASHINGTONIAN 
TEMPERANCE    SOCIETY,    AT   THE     SECOND     PRESBYTER- 
IAN CHURCH,  ON  THE  22D  DAY  OF  FEBRUARY, 
1842,    BY    ABRAHAM    LINCOLN,     ESQ. 

Although  the  Temperance  Cause  has  been  in  progress 
for  nearly  twenty  years,  it  is  apparent  to  all  that  it  is  jusr 
now  being  crowned  with  a  degree  of  success,  hitherto 
unparalleled. 

The  list  of  its  friends  is  daily  swelled  by  me  additions 
of  fifties,  of  hundreds,  and  of  thousands.  The  cause 
itself  seems  suddenly  transformed  from  a  cold  abstract 
theory,  to  a  living,  breathing,  active  and  powerful  chief- 
tain, going  forth  "conquering  and  to  conquer."  The 
citadels  of  his  great  adversary  are  daily  being  stormed 
and  dismantled ;  his  temples  and  his  altars,  where  the 
rites  of  his  idolatrous  worship  have  long  been  performed, 
and  where  human  sacrifices  have  long  been  wont  to  be 
made,  are  daily  desecrated  and  deserted.  The  trump  of 
the  conqueror's  fame  is  sounding  from  hill  to  hill,  from 
sea  to  sea,  and  from  land  to  land,  and  calling  millions  to 
his  standard  at  a  blast. 

For  this  new  and  splendid  success  we  heartily  rejoice. 
That  that  success  is  so  much  greater  now,  than  hereto- 
fore, is  doubtless  owing  to  rational  causes  ;  and  if  we 
would  have  it  continue,  we  shall  do  well  to  inquire  what 
those  causes  are. 


98263 


•  t  . 


Vs. 


HOMESTEAD,  SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS. 


O.  H.  Oi-O,«7Cy£3 


'•  •-         If 

-    ,  i  .   \9 


AN  ADDRESS 

DELIVERED      BEFORE      THE      SPRINGF^fLD      WASHINGTONIAN 
TEMPERANCE    SOCIETY,    AT   THE     SECOND     PRESBYTER- 
IAN CHURCH,  ON  THE  22D  DAY  OF  FEBRUARY, 
1842,    BY    ABRAHAM     LINCOLN,      ESQ. 

Although  the  Temperance  Cause  has  been  in  progress 
for  nearly  twenty  years,  it  is  apparent  to  all  that  it  is  jusf 
now  bein«;  crowned  with  a  degree  of  success,  hitherto 
unparalleled. 

The  list  of  its  friends  is  daily  swelled  by  me  additions 
of  fifties,  of  hundreds,  and  of  thousands.  The  cause 
itself  seems  suddenly  transformed  from  a  cold  abstract 
theory,  to  a  living,  breathing,  active  and  powerful  chief- 
tain, going  forth  "conquering  and  to  conquer."  The 
citadels  of  his  great  adversary  are  daily  being  stormed 
and  dismantled ;  his  temples  and  his  altars,  where  the 
rites  of  his  idolatrous  worship  have  long  been  performed, 
and  where  human  sacrifices  have  long  been  wont  to  be 
made,  are  daily  desecrated  and  deserted.  The  trump  of 

\ 

<  the  conqueror's  fame  is  sounding  from  hill  to  hill,  from 
sea  to  sea,  and  from  land  to  land,  and  calling  millions  to 
his  standard  at  a  blast. 

i '  For  this  new  and  splendid  success  we  heartily  rejoice. 

x    That  that  success  is  so  much  greater  now,  than  hereto- 

c 

|    fore,    is  doubtless  owing  to  rational  causes  ;    and  if    we 
\    would  have  it  continue,  we  shall  do  v;ell  to  inquire  what 


thost  causes  are. 


i 


98263 


AN    ADDRESS. 


The.  warfare  heretofore  waged  against  the  demon 
intemperance,  has,  somehow  or  other,  been  erroneous 
Either  the  champions  engaged,  or  the  tactics  they 
adopted,  have  not  been  the  most  proper.  These  cham- 
pions, for  the  most  part,  have  been  preachers,  lawyers  and 
hired  agents ;  betwefti  these  and  the  mass  of  mankind, 
there  is  a  want  of  approac liability,  if  the  term  be  admis- 
sible, partial  at  least,  fatal  to  their  success.  They  are 
supposed  to  have  no  sympathy  of  feeling  or  interest 
with  those  very  persons  whom  it  is  their  object  to  con- 
vince and  persuade. 

And  again,  it  is  so  easy  and  so  common  to  ascribe 
motives  to  men  of  these  classes,  other  than  those  they 
profess  to  act  upon.  The  preacher,  it  is  said,  advocates 
temperance  because  he  is  a  fanatic,  and  desires  a  union 
of  the  church  and  state ;  the  lawyer  from  his  pride,  and 
vanity  of  hearing  himself  speak ;  and  the  hired  agent 
for  his  salary. 

But  when  one  who  has  long  been  known  as  a  victim 
of  intemperance  bursts  the  fetters  that  have  bound  him, 
and  appears  before  his  neighbors  "clothed  and  in  his  right 
mind,"  a  redeemed  specimen  of  long-lost  humanity,  and 
stands  up  with  tears  of  joy  trembling  in  his  eyes,  to 
tell  of  the  miseries  once  endured,  now  to  be  endured  no 
more  forever,  of  his  once  naked  and  starving  children, 
now  clad  and  fed  comfortably,  of  a  wife,  long  weighed 
down  with  woe,  weeping,  and  a  -broken  heart,  now 
restored  to  health,  happiness  and  a  renewed  affection,  and 
how  easily  it  is  all  done,  once  it  is  resolved  to  be  done; 
how  simple  his  language  ;  there  is  a  logic  and  an  eloquence 
in  it  that  few  with  human  feelings  can  resist.  They  can- 


AN    ADDRESS.  t 

.  ° 

not  say  that  he  desires  a  union  of  church  and  state,  for 
he  is  not  a  church-member;  they  cannot  say  he  is  vain  of 
hearing  himself  speak,  for  his  whole  demeanor  shows  he 
would  gladly  avoid  speaking  at  all ;  they  cannot  say  he 
speaks  for  pay,  for  he  receives  none,  and  asks  for  none. 
Nor  can  his  sincerity  in  any  way  be  doubted,  or  his  sym- 
pathy for  those  he  would  persuade  to  imitate  his  example 
be  denied. 

In  my  judgment  it  is  to  the  battles  of  this  new 'class 
of  champions  that  our  late  success  is  greatly,  perhaps 
chiefly,  owing.  But  had  the  old-school  champions  them- 
selves been  of  the  most  wise  selecting?  Was  their 
system  of  tactics  the  most  judicious  ?  It  seems  to  me  it 
was  not.  Too  much  denunciation  against  dram-sellers 
and  dram-drinkers  was  indulged  in.  This,  I  think,  was 
both  impolitic  and  unjust.  It  was  impolitic,  because  it  is 
not  much  in  the  nature  of  man  to  be  driven  to  anything ; 
still  less  to  be  driven  about  that  which  is  exclusively 
his  own  business  ;  and  least  of  all,  where  such  driving  is  to 
be  submitted  to  at  the  expense  of  pecuniary  interest,  or 
burning  appetite.  When  the  dram-seller  and  drinker 
were  incessantly  told,  not  in  the  accents  of  entreaty  and 
persuasion,  diffidently  addressed  by  erring  man  to  an 
erring  brother,  but  in  the  thundering-  tones  of  anathema 
and  denunciation,  with  which  the  lordly  judge  often 
groups  together  all  the  crimes  of  the  felon's  life,  and 
thrusts  them  in  his  face  just  ere  he  passes  sentence  of 
death  upon  him,  that  they  were  the  authors  of  all  the 
vice  and  misery  and  crime  in  the  land  ;  that  they  were  the 
manufacturers  and  material  of  all  the  thieves  and  robbers 
and  murderers  that  infest  the  earth  :  that  their  houses 


AN    ADDRESS 


were  the  work-shops  of  the  devil,  and  that  their  persons 
should  be  shunned  by  all  the  good  and  virtuous,  as  moral 
pestilences, — I  say,  when  they  were  told  all  this,  and  in 
this  way,  it  is  not  wonderful  that  they  were  slow,  very 
slow,  to  acknowledge  the  truth  of  such  denunciations, 
and  to  join  the  ranks  of  their  denouncers,  in  a  hue  and 
cry  against  themselves. 

To  have  expected  them  to  do  otherwise  than  they  did 
— to  have  expected  them  not  to  meet  denunciation  with 
denunciation,  crimination  with  crimination,  and  anathema 
with  anathema, — was  to  expect  a  reversal  of  human 
nature,  which  is  God's  decree,  and  can  never  be  reversed. 

When  the  conduct  of  men  is  designed  to  be  influ 
enced,  persuasion,  kind,  unassuming  persuasion,  should 
ever  be  adopted.  It  is  an  old  and  a  true  maxim,  "  that 
a  drop  of  honey  catches  more  flies  than  a  gallon  of  gall." 
So  with  men.  If  you  would  win  a  man  to  your  cause,  first 
convince  him  that  you  are  his  sincere  friend.  Therein  is 
a  drop  of  honey  that  catches  his  heart ;  which,  say  what 
he  will,  is  the  great  high  road  to  his  reason,  and  which, 
when  once  gained,  you  will  find  but  little  trouble  in  con- 
vincing his  judgment  of  the  justice  of  your  cause,  if, 
indeed,  that  cause  really  be  a  just  one.  On  the  contrary, 
assume  to  dictate  to  his  judgment,  or  to  command  his 
action,  or  to  mark  him  as  one  to  be  shunned  and  despised, 
and  he  will  retreat  within  himself,  close  all  the  avenues 
to  his  head  and  his  heart,  and  though  your  cause  be  naked 
truth  itself,  transformed  to  the  heaviest  lance,  harder 
than  steel,  and  sharper  than  steel  can  be  made,  and 
though  you  throw  it  with  more  than  herculean  force  and 
precision,  you  shall  be  no  more  able  to  pierce  him,  than 


AN    ADDRESS.  5 

to  penetrate  the  hard  shell  of  a  tortoise  with  a  rye-straw. 
Such  is  man,  and  so  must  he  be  understood  by  those  who 
would  lead  him,  even  to  his  own  best  interests. 

On  this  point,  the  Washingtonians  greatly  excel  the 
temperance  advocates  of  former  times.  Those  whom 
they  desire  to  convince  and  persuade  are  their  old  friends 
and  companions.  They  know  they  are  not  demons,  nor 
even  the  worst  of  men  ;  they  know  that  generally  they 
are  kind,  generous  and  charitable,  even  beyond  the 
example  of  their  more  staid  and  sober  neighbors.  They 
are  practical  philanthropists  ;  and  they  glow  with  a  gen- 
erous and  brotherly  zeal,  that  mere  theorizers  are  incap- 
able of  feeling.  Benevolence  and  charity  possess  their 
hearts  entirely  ;  and  out  of  the  abundance  of  their  hearts 
their  tongues  give  utterance,  "  Love  through  all  their 
actions  run,  and  all  their  words  are  mild :"  in  this  spirit 
they  speak  and  act,  and  in  the  same  they  are  heard  and 
regarded.  And  when  such  is  the  temper  of  the  advocate, 
and  such  of  the  audience,  no  good  cause  can  be  unsuc- 
cessful. But  I  have  said  that  denunciations  against  dram- 
sellers  and  dram-drinkers  are  unjust,  as  well  as  impolitic- 
Let  us  see. 

I  have  not  inquired  at  what  period  of  time  the  use  of 
intoxicating  liquors  commenced ;  nor  is  it  important  to 
know.  It  is  sufficient  that  to  all  of  us  who  now  inhabit 
the  world,  the  practice  of  drinking  them  is  just  as  old  as 
the  world  itself — that  is,  we  have  seen  the  one,  just  as  long 
as  we  have  seen  the  other.  When  all  such  of  us  as  have 
now  reached  the  years  of  maturity,  first  opened  our  eyes 
upon  the  stage  of  existence,  we  found  intoxicating  liquors 
recognized  by  everybody,  used  by  everybody,  repudiated 


6  AN    ADDRESS. 


by  nobody.  It  commonly  entered  into  the  first  draught 
of  the  infant,  and  the  last  draught  of  the  dying  man. 
From  the  sideboard  of  the  parson,  down  to  the  ragged 
pocket  of  the  houseless  loafer,  it  was  constantly  found. 
Physicians  prescribed  it,  in  this,  that  and  the  other 
disease  ;  Government  provided  it  for  soldiers  and  sailors  ; 
and  to  have  a  rolling  or  raising,  a  husking  or  "  hoe-down  " 
anywhere  about  without  it,  was  positively  unsufferable. 
So  too,  it  was  everywhere  a  respectable  article  of  manu- 
facture and  of  merchandise.  The  making  of  it  was 
regarded  as  an  honorable  livelihood,  and-  he  could  make 
most,  was  the  most  enterprising  and  respectable.  Large 
and  small  manufactories  of  it  were  everywhere  erected, 
in  which  all  the  earthly  goods  of  their  owners  were  in- 
vested. Wagons  drew  it  from  town  to  town  ;  boats  bore 
it  from  clime  to  clime,  and  the  winds  wafted  it  from 
nation  to  nation  ;  and  merchants  bought  and  sold  it,  by 
wholesale  and  retail,  with  precisely  the  same  feelings  on 
the  part  of  the  seller,  buyer  and  by-stander  as  are  felt  at 
the  selling  and  buying  of  plows,  beef,  bacon,  or  any  other 
of  the  real  necessaries  of  life.  Universal  public  opinion 
not  only  tolerated,  but  recognized  and  adopted  its  use. 

It  is  true,  that  even  then  it  was  known  and  acknowl- 
edged that  many  were  greatly  injured  by  it ;  but  none 
seemed  to  think  the  injury  arose  from  the  use  of  a  bad 
thing,  but  from  the  abuse  of  a  very  good  thing.  The 
victims  of  it  were  to  be  pitied  and  compassionated,  just 
as  are  the  heirs  of  consumption,  and  other  hereditary 
diseases.  Their  failing  was  treated  as  a  misfortune,  and 
not  as  a  crime,  or  even  as  a  disgrace. 

If  then,  what  I  have  been  saying  is  true,  is  it  wonder- 


AN    ADDRESS.  7 

ful,  that  some  should  think  and  act  now,  as  all  thought 
and  acted  twenty  years  ago,  and  is  it  just  to  assail,  con- 
demn, or  despise  them  for  doing  so?  The  universal 
sense  of  mankind,  on  any  subject,  is  an  argument,  or  at 
least  an  influence,  not  easily  overcome.  The  success  of 
the  argument  in  favor  of  the  existence  of  an  over-ruling 
Providence,  mainly  depends  upon  that  sense ;  and  men 
ought  not,  in  justice,  to  be  denounced  for  yielding  to  it 
in  any  case,  or  giving  it  up  slowly,  especially  when  they 
are  backed  by  interest,  fixed  habits,  or  burning  appetites 
Another  error,  as  it  seems  to  me,  into  which  the  old 
reformers  fell,  was  the  position  that  all  habitual  drunk- 
ards were  utterly  incorrigible,  and  therefore,  must  be 
turned  adrift,  and  damned  without  remedy,  in  order  that 
the  grace  of  temperance  might  abound,  to  the  temperate 
then,  and  to  all  mankind  some  hundreds  of  years  there- 
after. There  is  in  this  something  so  repugnant  to 
humanity,  so  uncharitable,  so  ^old-blooded  and  feeling- 
less,  that  it  never  did,  nor  never  can  enlist  the  enthusiasm 
of  a  popular  cause.  We  could  not  love  the  man  who 
taught  it — we  could  not  hear  him  with  patience.  The 
heart  could  not  throw  open  its  portals  to  it,  the  generous 
man  could  not  adopt  it,  it  could  not  mix  with  his  blood. 
It  looked  so  fiendishly  selfish,  so  like  throwing  fathers 
and  brothers  overboard,  to  lighten  the  boat  for  our  se- 
curity— that  the  noble-minded  shrank  from  the  manifest 
meanness  of  the  thing.  And  besides  this,  the  benefits  of 
a  reformation  to  be  effected  by  such  a  system,  were  too 
remote  in  point  of  time,  to  warmly  engage  many  in  its 
behalf.  Few  can  be  induced  to  labor  exclusively  for  pos- 
terity ;  and  none  will  do  it  enthusiastically.  Posterity 


AN    ADDRESS. 


has  done  nothing  for  us  ;  and  theorize  on  it  as  we  may, 
practically  we  shall  do  very  little  for  it  unless  we  are  made 
to  think,  we  are,  at  the  same  time,  doing  something  for 
ourselves. 

What  an  ignorance  of  human  nature  does  it  exhibit, 
to  ask  or  expect  a  whole  community  to  rise  up  and  labor 
for  the  temporal  happiness  of  others,  after  themselves 
shall  be  consigned  to  the  dust,  a  majority  of  which  com- 
munity take  no  pains  whatever  to  secure  their  own 
eternal  welfare  at  no  greater  distant  day.  Great  distance 
in  either  time  or  space  has  wonderful  power  to  lull  and 
render  quiescent  the  human  mind.  Pleasures  to  be  en- 
joyed, or  pains  to  be  endured,  after  we  shall  be  dead  and 
gone,  are  but  little  regarded,  even  in  our  own  cases,  and 
much  less  in  the  cases  of  others. 

Still,  in  addition  to  this,  there  is  something  so  ludicrous, 
in  promises  of  good,  or  threats  of  evil,  a  great  way  off, 
as  to  render  the  whole  subject  with  which  they  are  con- 
nected, easily  turned  into  ridicule.  "  Better  lay  down 
that  spade  you're  stealing,  Paddy — if  you  don't,  you'll 
pay  for  it  at  the  day  of  judgment."  "  Be  the  powers,  if 
ye'll  credit  me  so  long  I'll  take  another  jist" 

3y  the  Washingtonians  this  system  of  consigning  the 
habitual  drunkard  to  hopeless  ruin  is  repudiated.  They 
adopt  a  more  enlarged  philanthropy,  they  go  for  present 
as  well  as  future  good.  They  labor  for  all  now  living, 
as  well  as  hereafter  to  live.  They  teach  hope  to  all-r-de- 
spair  to  none.  As  applying  to  their  cause,  they  deny 
the  doctrine  of  unpardonable  sin  :  as  in  Christianity  it  is 
taught,  so  in  this  they  teach — 


AN    ADDRESS  9 

"While  the  lamp  holds  out  to  burn, 
The  vilest  sinner  may  return." 

And,  what  is  a  matter  of  the  most  profound  congratula- 
tion, they,  by  experiment  upon  experiment,  and  example 
upon  example,  prove  the  maxim  to  be  no  less  true  in  the 
one  case  than  in  the  other.  On  every  hand  we  behold 
those,  who  but  yesterday  were  the  chief  of  sinners,  now 
the  chief  apostles  of  the  cause.  Drunken  devils  are  cast 
out  by  ones,  by  sevens,  by  legions ;  and  their  unfortunate 
victims,  like  the  poor  possessed,  who  was  redeemed  from 
his  long  and  lonely  wanderings  in  the  tombs,  are  publish- 
ing to  the  ends  of  the  earth  how  great  things  have  been 
done  for  them. 

To  these  new  champions,  and  this  new  system  of  tac- 
tics, our  late  success  is  mainly  owing  ;  and  to  them  we 
must  mainly  look  for  the  final  consummation.  The  ball 
is  now  rolling  gloriously  on,  and  none  are  so  able  as  they 
to  increase  its  speed,  and  its  bulk — to  add  to  its  mo- 
mentum and  its  magnitude — even  though  unlearned  in 
letters,  for  this  task  none  are  so  well  educated.  To  fit 
them  for  this  work  they  have  been  taught  in  the  true 
school.  They  have  been  in  that  gulf,  from  which  they 
would  teach  others  the  means  of  escape.  They  have 
passed  that  prison  wall,  which  others  have  long  declared 
impassable ;  and  who  that  has  not,  shall  dare  to  weigh 
opinions  with  them  as  to  the  mode  of  passing  ? 

But  if  it  be  true,  as  I  have  insisted,  that  those  who 
have  suffered  by  intemperance  personally,  and  have  re- 
formed, are  the  most  powerful  and  efficient  instruments 
to  push  the  reformation  to  ultimate  success,  it  does  not 
follow  that  those  who  have  not  suffered  have  no  part  left 


10  AN    ADDRESS. 


them  to  perform.  Whether  or  not  the  world  would  be 
vastly  benefitted  by  a  total  and  final  banishment  from  it 
of  all  intoxicating  drinks,  seems  to  me  not  now  an  open 
question.  Three-fourths  of  mankind  confess  the  affirm- 
ative witli  their  tongues ;  and,  I  believe,  all  the  rest 
acknowledge  it  in  their  hearts. 

Ought  any,  then,  to  refuse  their  aid  in  doing  what 
the  good  of  the  whole  demands  ?  Shall  he  who  cannot 
do  much,  be,  for  that  reason,  excused  if  he  do  nothing  ? 
"But,"  says  one,  "what  good  can  I  do  by  signing  the 
pledge?  I  never  drink,  even  without  signing."  This 
question  has  already  been  asked  and  answered  more  than 
a  million  of  times.  Let  it  be  answered  once  more.  For 
the  man,  suddenly  or  in  any  other  way,  to  break  off 
from  the  use  of  drams,  who  has  indulged  in  them  for  a 
long  course  of  years,  and  until  his  appetite  for  them  has 
grown  ten  or  a  hundred  fold  stronger  and  more  craving 
than  any  natural  appetite  can  be,  requires  a  most  power- 
ful moral  effort.  In  such  an  undertaking  he  needs  every 
moral  support  and  influence  that  can  possibly  be  brought 
to  his  aid,  and  thrown  around  him.  And  not  only  so, 
but  every  moral  prop  should  be  taken  from  whatever 
argument  might  rise  in  his  mind,  to  lure  him  to  his  back- 
sliding. When  he  casts  his  eyes  around  him,  he  should  be 
able  to  see  all  that  he  respects,  all  that  he  admires,  all 
that  he  loves,  kindly  and  anxiously  pointing  him  onward, 
and  none  beckoning  him  back  to  his  former  misesable 
"wallowing  in  the  mire." 

But  it  is  said  by  some,  that  men  will  think  and  act 
for  themselves ;  that  none  will  disuse  spirits  or  anything 
else  because  his  neighbors  do ;  and  that  moral  influence 


AN    ADDRESS.  II 

is  not  that  powerful  engine  contended  for.  Let  us  ex- 
amine this.  Let  me  ask  Jihe  man  who  could  maintain 
this  position  most  stiffly,  what  compensation  he  will 
accept  to  go  to  church  some  Sunday  and  sit  during  the 
sermon  with  his  wife's  bonnet  upon  his  head?  Not  a 
trifle,  I'll  venture.  And  why  not  ?  There  would  be 
nothing  irreligious  in  it,  nothing  immoral,  nothing  un- 
comfortable— then  why  not  ?  Is  it  not  because  there 
would  be  something  egregiously  unfashionable  in  it? 
Then  it  is  the  influence  of  fashion  ;  and  what  is  the 
influence  of  fashion  but  the  influence  that  other  people's 
actions  have  on  our  own  actions — the  strong  inclination 
each  of  us  feels  to  do  as  we  see  all  our  neighbors  do  ? 
Nor  is  the  influence  of  fashion  confined  to  any  particu- 
lar thing  or  class  of  things.  It  is  just  as  strong  on  one__ 
subject  as  another.  Let  us  make  it  as  unfashionable  to 
withhold  our  names  from  the  temperance  pledge,  as  for 
husbands  to  wear  their  wives'  bonnets  to  church,  and 
instances  will  be  just  as  rare  in  the  one  case  as  the  other._ 
"But,"  say  some,  "we  are  no  drunkards,  and  we  shall 
not  acknowledge  ourselves  such,  by  joining  a  reformed 
drunkards'  society,  whatever  our  influence  might  be." 
Surely,  no  Christian  will  adhere  to  this  objection. 
/  If  they  believe  as  they  profess,  that  Omnipotence 
condescended  to  take  on  himself  the  form  of  sinful  man, 
and,  as  such,  to  die  an  ignominious  death  for  their  sakes, 
surely,  they  will  not  refuse  submission  to  the  infinitely 
lesser  condescension,  for  the  temporal,  and  perhaps 
eternal  salvation, 'of  a  large,  erring,  and  unfortunate  class 
of  their  fellow-creatures.  Nor  is  the  condescension  very 
great.  In  my  judgment  such  of  us  as  have  never  fallen 


12  AN    ADDRESS. 


victims,  have  been  spared  more  from  the  absence  of  appe 
tite,  than  from  any  mental  or  moral  superiority  over  those 
who  have.  Indeed,  I  believe,  if  we  take  habitual  drunk- 
ards as  a  class,  their  heads  and  their  hearts  will  bear  an 
advantageous  comparison  with  those  of  any  other  class.  \ 
There  seems  ever  to  have  been  a  proneness  in  the  bril- 
liant and  warm-blooded  to  fall  into  this  vice — the  demon 
of  intemperance  ever  seems  to  have  delighted  in  sucking 
the  blood  of  genius  and  generosity.  What  one  of  us 
but  can  call  to  mind  some  relative,  more  promising  in 
youth  than  all  his  fellows,  who  has  fallen  a  sacrifice  to 
his  rapacity  ?  He  ever  seems  to  have  gone  forth  like 
the  Egyptian  angel  of  death,  commissioned  to  slay,  if  not 
the  first,  the  fairest  born  of  every  family.  Shall  he  now 
be  arrested  in  his  desolating  career?  In  that  arrest,  all 
can  give  aid  that  will ;  and  who  shall  be  excused  that  can, 
and  will  not  ?  Far  around  as  human  breath  has  ever 
blown,  he  keeps  our  fathers,  our  brothers,  our  sons,  and  our 
friends  prostrate  in  the  chains  of  moral  death  To  all 
the  living,  everywhere,  we  cry,  "  Come,  sound  the  moral 
trump,  that  these  may  rise  and  stand  up  an  exceeding 
great  army." — "  Come  from  the  four  winds,  O  breath  !  and 
breathe  upon  these  slain,  that  they  may  live."  If  the 
relative  grandeur  of  revolutions  shall  be  estimated  by  the 
great  amount  of  human  misery  they  alleviate,  and  the 
small  amount  they  inflict,  then,  indeed,  will  this  be  the 
grandest  the  world  shall  ever  have  seen, 

Of  our  political  revolution  of  '76  we  are  all  justly 
proud  It  has  given  us  a  degree  of  political  freedom  far 
exceeding  that  of  any  other  nations  of  the  earth.  In  it  the 
world  has  found  a  solution  of  the  long  mooted  problem. 


AN    ADDRESS.  13 

as  to  the  capability  of  man  to  govern  himself.  In  it  was 
the  germ  which  has  vegetated,  and  still  is  to  grow  and 
expand  into  the  universal  liberty  of  mankind, 

But,  with  all  these  glorious  results,  past,  present,  and 
to  come,  it  had  its  evils  too.  It  breathed  forth  famine, 
swam  in  blood,  and  rode  in  fire ;  and  long,  long  after,  the 
orphans'  cry  and  the  widows'  wail  continued  to  break  the 
sad  silence  that  ensued.  These  were  the  price  the  inev 
itable  price,  paid  for  the  blessings  it  bought. 

Turn  now  to  the  temperance  revolution.  In  it  we 
shall  find  a  stronger  bondage  broken,  a  viler  slavery  man- 
umitted, a  greater  tyrant  deposed — in  it,  more  of  want 
supplied,  more  disease  healed,  more  sorrow  assuaged. 
By  it,  no  orphans  starving,  no  widows  weeping.  By  it, 
none  wounded  in  feeling,  none  injured  in  interest ;  even 
the  dram-maker  and  dram-seller  will  have  glided  into 
other  occupations  so  gradually  as  never  to  have  felt  the 
change,  and  will  stand  ready  to  join  all  others  in  the  uni- 
versal song  of  gladness.  And  what  a  noble  ally  this,  to 
the  cause  of  political  freedom,  with  such  an  aid,  its 
march  cannot  fail  to  be  on  and  on,  till  every  son  of  earth 
shall  drink  in  rich  fruition  the  sorrow-quenching  draughts 
of  perfect  liberty.  Happy  day,  when,  all  appetites  con- 
trolled, all  passions  subdued,  all  matter  subjugated,  mind, 
all-conquering  mind,  shall  live  and  move,  the  monarch  of 
the  world  !  Glorious  consummation  !  Hail,  fall  of  fury  ! 
Reign  of  reason,  all  hail ! 

And  when  the  victory  shall  be  complete — when  there 
shall  be  neither  a  slave  nor  a  drunkard  on  the  earth — 
how  proud  the  title  of  that  Land,  which  may  truly  claim 
to  be  the  birth-place  and  the  cradle  of  both  those  revo- 


1> 

• 


14  AN    ADDRESS. 

lutions  that  shall  have  ended  in  that  victory.  How 
nobly  distinguished  that  people,  who  shall  have  planted, 
and  nurtured  to  maturity,  both  the  political  and  moral 
freedom  of  their  species. 

This  is  the  one  hundred  and  tenth  anniversary  of  the 
birthday  of  Washington — we  are  met  to  celebrate  this 
day.  Washington  is  the  mightiest  name  of  earth — long 
since  mightiest  in  the  cause  of  civil  liberty,  still  mightiest 
in  moral  reformation.  On  that  name  a  eulogy  is.  ex- 
pected. It  cannot  be.  To  add  brightness  to  the  sun,  or 
glory  to  the  name  of  Washington  is  alike  impossible. 
Let  none  attempt  it.  In  solemn  awe  pronounce  the 
name,  and  in  its  naked,  deathless  splendor  leave  it 
shining  on. 


• 


LINCOLN  MONUMENT,  SPRINGFIELD,  ILLINOIS. 


